


Maybe We'll Get to Spread Our Wings Tomorrow

by wildwinterwitch



Series: Driftwood [14]
Category: Broadchurch, True Love (TV)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Series 1 Episode 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-22
Updated: 2013-04-22
Packaged: 2017-12-09 04:46:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/770138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildwinterwitch/pseuds/wildwinterwitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alec and Holly come to a crossroads.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe We'll Get to Spread Our Wings Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from “Sea Fog” by Keane

After he had dropped off the box of computer parts at Alistair’s, Alec drove to the school. He somehow managed to avoid hurting anyone, let along crashing the car despite a dizzy episode that made it clear he shouldn’t have been driving. Hopefully, Holly drove. Casting a glance at their hot drinks in the cup holders, he noticed that he hadn’t closed the lid on her coffee firmly enough. The paper cup was literally swimming in coffee. He found some tissues and mopped up the mess while he waited for Holly to leave the school.

When the playground filled with children, he stepped out of the car, leaning heavily against the closed door so Holly could see him first thing when she came through the gate. This time, the pupils didn’t pay him much attention as they spilled out of the building and the grounds in a noisy, happy flood of bubbles. He wasn’t the only one waiting for someone, so he blended in.

He was instantly reminded of other instances when he’d waited outside a school, to pick up his own child, one of the last times was to tell her that he and her mother were going to split up. They’d barely talked since then, because she had blamed him. Thankfully, it never crossed her mind that it might have been her mother’s fault. That was the plan, of course, but that didn’t make it any less painful.

“Hey you.”

His face lit up when her words roused him from his memories. “Holly.”

“Feeling better?” she asked, her tone dripping with sarcasm. She was right to. She’d spent the better part of her night by his side, reading to him, possibly even worrying about him. She looked tired, and he realised it was his fault.

“I brought you coffee. It’s in the car.”

“Let’s go then,” she said, adjusting her grip around the strap of her bag. She met his gaze evenly, but there was a fierce glimmer in it that made him feel like a badly behaved boy.

“I was hoping you’d drive,” he said, placing the keys in her hand. “I’m not… I don’t want to pose any further danger to others.”

“Right,” she said, and he moved away from the door and to the passenger’s side. They got in. The whole car was filled with its rich aroma.

“You did bring me coffee,” she said, reaching for the cup.

“I wouldn’t lie to you, Holly.” He strapped himself in.

“Thanks. Where to?”

“The hotel. If that’s all right.”

She adjusted the seat and the mirrors, put the key in the ignition, and pulled off the side of the street. Holly was a confident driver, and he relaxed into the seat with a sigh, closing his eyes. Leaving the hospital had been the right decision, despite everything. They’d made significant progress today, and with any luck, Johnston would raise their budget once more so Miller could close the investigation without him.

The trip to the Trader’s didn’t take long, and after nearly falling up the stairs to his room he collapsed on the bed he’d not slept in since Holly had last been there. She deposited their paper cups on the small end table Becca had provided him with and pulled his shoes off his feet.

“You’re a stupid man, you know that?” Holly said, taking off her own shoes, her cardigan and scarf before stretching out beside him. Somehow, they ended up with her sitting against the wall and cradling his head in her lap.

“True, but ye cannae say I'm nae dedicated,” he groaned, making himself comfortable. He wrapped his arms around her legs from underneath, snuggling closer to her as she smoothed her hands over his shoulder and through his hair. Her gentle strokes relaxed him, and his chest felt like it expanded, allowing him to breathe more freely.

“I need to talk to you, Holly,” he said eventually.

“I’m here, love.”

Her last word made him turn in her arms so he could look at her. “Do ye mean that? It’s nae just something ye say?”

She caught on immediately. “Yes. I suppose I do. Although it’s ridiculously soon to be feeling that way.”

He grinned, his chest expanding further, but this time to accommodate the wealth of conflicting feelings, most of which were good. He felt lightheaded for a moment, and he closed his eyes in an attempt to will his heart to still a bit. Instead, it skipped a beat when he realised that he felt the same for her. It was delicate yet, but it was definitely there. He’d never thought he’d ever feel that way about someone again.

“Tell me about K,” he said. “Please.”

“You lured me here with coffee to tell _me_ something,” she reminded him gently, brushing his hair back from his forehead, dancing her fingertips over the exposed skin. His eyes fluttered shut and he felt his heart slow down.

He told her about Sandbrook.

It was as if they’d been forced into a bottle and tightly sealed, and once the lid was opened there was no stopping it. Holly listened attentively, caressing him as if to tease the words out or encourage him, he had no idea how her magic worked. It didn’t really matter. The important thing was that he was finally able to share his story with someone, although he’d thought he’d take the story to his grave.

The room was filled with silence for a while after he’d finished. He would have started to wonder if Holly had fallen asleep if she weren’t still caressing him. He jumped slightly when she said, “Ellie called me a saint today. For putting up with you.”

“Ye are. I’ve been keeping everyone at arm’s length.“

“I’m not a saint, Alec.”

“Ye’re the first person to listen to me,” he said, sitting up.

Holly drew up her legs and hugged them to herself. Had he said something wrong? Had it taken her a few minutes to fully appreciate what he had just told her?

Again, she fell silent, collecting her thoughts. He wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad one. He prepared himself for a blow, but his investigative and creative mind had suddenly gone very blank. He didn't lnow what to expect. Instead, he had a strange sense of premonition that whatever she said was going to be harder to deal with than the chief medical officer's report on his fitness for duty.

“K is for Karen,” Holly said after a long time. “We were lovers.” She looked at him, half-defiant.

“A woman,” he said dumbly. _Well done, Hardy._

“A girl,” Holly corrected, clamping her hand over her mouth and looking away.

Alec felt dizzy, but this time it wasn’t his heart but the sheer number of ideas that were flooding his brain. He felt as if he were reviewing scenes from this investigation all over again, as if he hadn’t gone over them often enough yet. “How old?” he rasped.

She dropped her hand to the mattress, where it came to rest palm-up, her fingers curled. She wasn’t fighting. She needed this, he suddenly realised. “Sixteen. She had a brain tumour.”

He took a deep breath. “Was she your pupil?”

She looked at him. “When we first met, yeah, she was.” She told him of a connection between them, of the desire to be with someone who understood and accepted them as they were, of sharing an interest in literature and art when all the world around them seemed so shallow. Of having an affair with a married man who didn’t really appreciate her, a man who was looking for something with her that his wife couldn’t, or wouldn’t, give him. What that was, Holly said, she never knew. The fact that Karen was a girl was just that. She hadn’t gone looking for a woman deliberately.

“So you’re not…”

“I don’t know what I am, Alec. I’m certainly not a saint. I am tired, though. So very tired.”

He closed his eyes, rubbing them roughly with his hands. His wife had betrayed him with a woman, and Holly had turned from an ungrateful male lover to a female one, one who was grateful for the serious attention of an adult, something that every teenager sought.

He got off the bed, suddenly feeling very filthy. It occurred to him that he’d not showered since the morning of the day before. That had been a very long day, capped by his collapse and a night in the hospital. Of course, there’d been no time before he discharged himself.

“Alec?”

“I need to… I need a moment. To myself. Just a quick shower. You’ll hear it if I collapse,” he added dourly.

“Alec.”

“Please, Holly.”

He escaped into the bathroom, where he undressed clumsily and stumbled into the shower, supporting himself against the cold tile of the wall. The running water washed away his tears as he finally allowed them to fall freely.

His wife had sought, and obviously found, something in a woman’s arms that he hadn’t been able to give her. She’d never been able to tell him exactly what that was. And then Holly came along, and when he asked her for a fuck, happily gave it to him, and seemed to mean it when she called him ‘love’. But she’d been with a girl only a year older than his daughter. Too many thoughts were swirling around his head, he couldn’t suppress them.

He sobbed, sliding down the wet tiles and sitting in the pooling water, hiding from the world in his hands.

A cold gust of air made him shiver. Of course. Holly had heard him and had come in to make sure he was all right. Did that make her a saint or a sinner? Certainly a concerned sinner.

“Alec,” she said, crouching before him after she’d turned off the water. Although he wanted to resist at first, he allowed her to help him out of the narrow stall.

They returned to the bed, and she held him as she had before, his head in her lap, with him naked this time. “I loved Karen,” Holly said. “I wasn’t taking advantage of her. She gave me my life back, and my pride. And for that I’ll always be grateful to her.”

He curled up further, oddly enough seeking her closeness.

“I’m not sure it would have lasted, however.”

He twisted slowly in her arms.

“What hurts more, Alec? Betrayal, or being betrayed with someone of the other sex?” she asked, her eyes wide and brownish-green.

His voice refused to obey him at first. He began to shiver in the cold as the hot steam evaporated. “Betrayal. Being betrayed with a woman. I don’t know. What is it that… draws you to them? What does she have that I don’t?” he asked.

“To me, you’re a great lover. I can’t say what you were to her.”

He blinked, trying to sort his thoughts. “What is it about sex with a woman?”

“You're supposed to be the expert. It’s selfless and slow and sensuous,” Holly said, caressing his forehead, trying to smooth the lines with her thumb. “But… it can be with men too, if they forget about their cock and their ego for a while.”

“Oh.”

“You’re not that kind,” Holly said.

“How do ye know? Given enough time, and routine…” he began stubbornly.

“Then you’re just taking things for granted,” she replied, “and I think that can happen to all relationships.”

He rolled to lie on his side. He’d feared that his wife might leave him for someone else one day because she was the kind of woman any bloke would be extremely lucky to have by his side. He’d never known why she’d settled down with him. Their baby girl was a reason, certainly. Also, the fact that both of them were with the police made things easier because they knew about the gruelling hours they sometimes had to work, and the horrible stuff they had to be put up with. It had all been about convenience.

“Alec?” she asked.

“Aye. Still here,” he mumbled. He reached for her hand.

“Just very confused.”

“Ye could say that.”

“So,” she began.

“I’m going to tell Maggie and Ollie. About Sandbrook,” he said. It was the one thing he could make sense of now. He turned again to look at her. “I didn’t want you to learn it from the papers. Because…”

She covered his mouth with her hand. “You mustn’t think like that.”

He plucked her hand from his mouth. “I need to tell someone.”

“You’ve told me.”

“Aye, but I. I want to tell them as well. Someone… who seems to have it in for me. They’re not as likely to believe the story, after, if you’re the one to tell it. And I owe them, Holly, I owe the families.” He noticed Holly blink at his words.

“I see,” she said, but he knew she was just saying that. He was confident, however, that eventually she would really understand.

Holly somehow managed to lean down for a kiss. It was sweet and tender, unlike any kiss they’d shared before. Of course, it was over much too soon.

“I need to get ready, Holly. To tell them. Can you drive me there?”

“Of course,” she said, smiling. It was the first genuine smile she gave him, a smile that was free of Karen and being a saint, but it was laced with fear of being rejected.

He wasn’t sure yet what to make of her previous relationship, he didn’t have much time to make up his mind. He knew, however, that he didn’t want to lose her, and that what he felt for her was certainly not friendship any more. The feeling was very close to love, and the idea made him gasp a little. He closed his eyes. He needed to tell her, but he didn’t feel ready, and she probably needed to hear the words, or she was scared of them, and…

He pushed himself up and left for the bathroom with a quick kiss to her cheek to get ready. It was time to wrap things up.

-:-

She watched him disappear into the visitor information centre, resisting the urge to follow him inside to be with him when he told his story to people who hated him. But she wasn’t sure if she had that right any more. Something had broken and shifted between them earlier. Of course it had. She’d not meant to tell him about Karen, particularly not after he’d told her that his wife had left him for a woman.

The thing was, she couldn’t leave him now, not like this, when, at the very least, he needed a friend. Perhaps he needed more, but she would wait. She’d take his lead. He’d felt safe with her, otherwise he wouldn’t have told her, and there was something more. Why else would he have wanted her to learn about Sandbrook from him, rather than from the papers? This was his way of protecting her. Making sure she wasn’t surprised by anything, the way you would treat someone about whom you care a great deal.

Holly knew that he needed time to process things, but if he kept pushing himself like this, he’d not last long enough to see it through.

She jumped, startled, when someone knocked on the rain-splattered window of the passenger door. It was Alec. She unlocked the door for him and he got in, bringing a gust of shockingly fresh wet air with him.

“Better?” she asked.

“Much.”

“Let’s get you to bed then,” she said, turning the key in the ignition.

“No. There’s something I need to check at the station.”

“You really ought to get some rest, Alec.”

“I don’t have much time left, and I want… there’s something…” he said. “I need to do this.” There was a cold firmness to his voice that made her withdraw slightly.

“You take the car, though. I’ll get a cab,” he said.

“Why don’t you tell me you need time to think?” she demanded. _It’s okay. I understand. I always do, don’t I?_ she thought bitterly, hating herself for not speaking her mind.

“I need all the time I have to solve this case.”

Biting her lip, she nodded, and pulled away from the kerb. The case kept him going, but really, she ought to take him to hospital.

“Take care,” she said softly as she dropped him off at the station. He left with a crisp nod, his coat billowing in the breeze as he walked slowly to the entrance.

Tears spilled down her cheeks as she drove through the empty streets. She was s rubbish friend, and an even worse lover to let him go like this. 


End file.
